Once again 0430hrs on the road, a hilly ride and a consequentially later arrival meant we were hot at the end. Some of the heat was taken out by a killer headwind in the last 5 miles, you can see it in the video below.
That said, there were as always beautiful aspects to our ride. The sunrise was amazing and we had lots of friendly waves.
A couple of days back I mentioned how the landscape here is dominated by industrial scale olive production. We saw a perfect example of what has happened this morning. In the photo below you can see how half of this hill has natural trees the other half has had its trees ripped out and olive trees planted
The Andalusia Bird Society wrote an article about Industrial and intensive Olive Plantations and the ensuing environmental disaster , it’s worth a read. I had no idea until I saw what has been done to this probably once beautiful region:
We are somewhat fatigued, our knees are playing up and we need a rest. We are scheduled to arrive in Gibraltar on 20th July so we plan to cycle to a town called Cuevas del Becerro tomorrow and have two days there. This will allow us to rest before the final two cycling days into Gib.
It’s an odd feeling knowing that this remarkable odyssey is coming to an end. We will definitely miss the absolute sense of freedom. We will miss the spectacular sunrises, the kind people, the (mostly) healthy lifestyle, we will miss saying, “ok, that’s enough, let’s pitch our tent in these woods”. We will miss the stars and the animals.
Sure, there are things I won’t miss – 40c heat (though the UK is abnormally hot at present – I look forward to getting re-involved with Extinction Rebellion when I’m back), cycling up massive hills and olive trees!!!
In the next few days I’ll be writing more about Médecins Sans Frontières – the cause that drives us. I’ll also be hitting you all for money again so you may want to go offline till next week.